Welcome to the Jewish Book Council blog. We hope you'll join us as we venture into the world of Jewish books, exploring questions related to what makes a book Jewish, trends in the Jewish literary scene, interesting new books to come across our desk, emerging authors, interviews, and more. Feel free to write to us with your opinions and ideas. We'd love to hear from you! All posts can now be viewed directly on the main JBC website here: http://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/_blog/The_ProsenPeople/

Sukkot and Social Justice

My initial venture into Jewish social justice came my first year of rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Determined to learn something about Harlem — the neighborhood that bounded my school to the north and east—I got involved with a community organizing effort to help residents avoid eviction and ensure safe living conditions. At the time, New York City was in the process of ridding itself of thousands of buildings that had defaulted to city ownership when landlords abandoned them during the fiscal crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. In the late ’90s, as housing prices in Harlem were rising, the city began selling these buildings to for-profit landlords, who often found ways to evict long-term tenants or to push them out by refusing to turn on the hot water, or to do needed repairs.